Journalist

“Michael is an outstanding guide to the new and bewildering world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

— Saadia Madsbjerg, Managing Director at The Rockefeller Foundation

In addition to the long-form narratives of his published books, Michael is a prolific producer of shorter content in mainstream media. A 24-year career began for The West Australian in his hometown of Perth, where he won a statewide journalism award in his debut year for a feature on Burma’s civil war. (The trip to the Karen stronghold of Manerplaw on the Thai border also turned out to launch the career of another successful journalist: Anderson Cooper. See picture below - Michael's blonde mop can be spotted in the middle, Anderson is sitting directly opposite him.)

Travel became an integral part of his life after that. It took him to increasingly senior journalism roles in Jakarta, Buenos Aires and New York, where as a reporter, bureau chief, managing editor and senior columnist, he authored thousands of bylined articles on economics, finance and geopolitics. Most of these were for The Wall Street Journal and its affiliate Dow Jones Newswires but he also wrote for The Washington Post, The Australian, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs and for numerous other publications. He left The Journal in 2015, but has continued to write consistently, with his byline appearing in Wired, The Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, The Boao Review,The Daily Beast and Techonomy, among other publications.

Since 2017, Michael has been the Chairman of the Advisory Board at CoinDesk, the leading purveyor of news and information about the blockchain and digital asset industry. There, he brings his veteran journalism experience, his industry vision and his broad network of connections to help a budding team of event organizers and journalists forge a quality media organization that’s becoming a trusted chronicler of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry’s development and necessary check on those who dominate it. For the advisory board, Michael has assembled a top-notch team of advisors from startups, established enterprises, academia and the non-profit sector representing a broad cross-section of the global economy, collectively bringing the weight of experience and integrity to this rapidly growing media entity. In that chairman’s role, he has also revived a regular writing role, penning the weekly “Token Economy” column for CoinDesk.

Michael is also a sought after commentator for television and radio. At The Wall Street Journal, he was a co-host of various WSJ Online live television shows and, for a time, of his own book-themed show, “Afterword.” He has appeared on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg TV and radio, PBS, NPR, CBC, the BBC and many other broadcast outlets, where he has been called upon to talk about global economics and politics, digital transformation and blockchain technology. Those skills have in turn put him in front of filmmakers, resulting in his appearance in three separate documentaries – Chevolution (2008), Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It (2015) and Banking on Bitcoin (2016)

Below is a selection of Michael’s more recent noteworthy columns and articles: